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International Phishing Racket Busted by Hyderabad City Police

THE HINDU reported on 11th January, 2014 stating that the Hyderabad Police cracked an international phishing scam on Friday (January 10, 2014) by apprehending six individuals including five Nigerians who supposedly hacked net-banking accounts of over 100 people.

According to a statement published by THE NEW INDIAN EXPRESS on 11th January, 2014, Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma while explaining the protocol of the 'phishing' scam said that Indian counterparts (of the Nigerian criminals) opened banking accounts with fictitious papers in different cities.

The Nigerians also extorted emails from Internet and purchased URLs (Universal Resource Locators) to send bogus emails to customers of bank containing fake homepages of bank to trick clients into revealing their Internet banking information.

He said that the patrons sent their net banking data that ended up with Nigerians on the bogus URL.

He explained that the Nigerians then supposedly targeted accounts with mammoth cash and passed on details of victim to their Indian accomplices who employed fake ID testimonies of clients and transferred money (through various modes of Internet banking) to one of the bogus accounts.

THE TIMES OF INDIA published another statement on 11th January, 2014 quoting Commissioner as saying "We could stop the transfer of Rs. 61 lakh to the accounts of accused by nabbing them. After analyzing the computers and smart phones of the accused in the last two days, we have alerted more than 100 account holders whose accounts have been hacked by phishing."

Two laptops, three Internet data cards, six ATM cards, six mobile phones, 20 SIM cards, a car and three Nigerian passports were recovered from the arrested persons.

Sharma told media persons that the gang was also wanted by the police in Delhi, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.

Moreover, this is not the first time that a gang of Nigerian cybercriminal has been busted by Indian Police as in January 2012, six Nigerian nationals were arrested in Mumbai, India on suspicion of defrauding hundreds of people through text message and spam email scams. Police said that the six allegedly duped recipients into handing over personal details and money by informing them that they had become millionaires in a lottery.